Interlude
by Yuudan
Summary: Set toward the end of the fourth book, in the ship that's bringing the girls home after their escape. Clarissa has a score to settle. Jacky/Clarissa femslash.


For a moment, Jacky thinks that her time has finally come, this time for real. There have been many moments like that in her life, thinking her immortal soul is about to leave her body for the eternal kingdom – but none quite like this. Usually it's awful fear, horrible pain, anxiety and terror and blood. But not this time.

This time it's perfume and serenity and peace. She actually doesn't mind terribly.

Believing death is near is a very logical deduction, she is sure, because what creature other than one of the Lord's own angels could be quite so resplendent and heart-wrenchingly perfect as the one standing next to her bed?

But no. It isn't an angel in the room, come to gently herd her into the pearly gates – after a few minutes of conversation it becomes immediately plain that no angel would ever be quite so snide as one Clarissa Worthington Howe, who is in fact the one looking snobbishly down at her. The fact that she's wearing _her_ dress, the blue one she'd sewed herself on the Dolphin all those years ago, makes Jacky's breath hitch, and a flush rise up her cheeks. While it makes _her_ look like a loose woman off the street, no one would mistake Miss Worthington for anything other than the very finest of ladies. Class must be something you were born with, after all. Jacky thinks she should be more insulted about the whole thing, but she doesn't quite manage. Clarissa looks like a queen.

"Oh, and one more thing," Clarissa says before going, leaning over Jacky's bed until their noses almost touch and their breaths mingle together, "I feel you should know that on that boat, part of me quite revelled in the thought of eating your liver . . . next time I won't pass up the opportunity,"

Jacky's stomach makes flips as those words register, and really, her body's reacting as if she'd just received a confession of undying love. But Clarissa is turning to go, and Jacky's hand automatically clenches around the fabric of her blue dress, stopping her. Well, it's not like the blonde couldn't free herself easily from her weak hold, but for some reason she doesn't.

Instead she inclines her head on one side like a curious cat and whispers, "You know... it just occurred to me, we still have a score to settle. I can't leave what happened on that ship alone and let you think you won,"

It takes her a few seconds to understand what she's saying – she's talking about the kiss. Their ruse to explain what they were doing out of bed in the middle of the night. What does she mean, a score to settle?

Clarissa's face, Clarissa's beautiful face, is offering her a lazy smirk, and getting closer and closer, and Jacky can't think anymore. There's a light pressure or her lips, tantalizingly brief and delicate. She's teasing her, Jacky can see it in her eyes.

When she can't stand the delicate, touch-and-go brushes of their lips any longer, she sinks both hands in Clarissa's hair, and she crashes their mouths together, licking and sucking thoroughly and without a care that she's doing impure things to the aristocratic daughter of the oh-so-rich-and-noble House of Howe, Virginia. Said aristocratic daughter however, is still smirking smugly, and doesn't seem at all put upon with the proceedings. In fact, she's got her own hands on the back of Jacky's skull, pulling her as close as physics will allow. It's not particularily tender, not like Jaimy and the others who handled her like fragile china - with Clarissa it's all fierceness and teeth.

Soon, the sheet – the only thing separating her nakedness from public view - is dispatched of, and Clarissa wastes no time trailing down from Jacky's mouth to her jaw, down her neck, her collarbone. . .

"Oh, God -" she breathes, her fingers convulsing in her classmate's blond strands. Her bare leg closes around the other girl's waist, and she distractedly wonders what their old teacher would say about this _inappropriate behaviour_ between two respectable Peabody ladies such as them.

"Not God, dear," her sometimes rival whispers, looking down on her with haughty and somewhat amused eyes, hair in disarray, "'Clarissa' is just fine,"

Then she slips out of Jacky's dress and throws it over the bed, and she gives her a smile that would look more natural on a wolf, and well, Jacky's sure Jaimy'll forgiver her this one.


End file.
